I’ve been working for close to 2 weeks on the pushbutton start / ignition system with RFID security. I’m not mentioning the companies name because I dont think it was an issue with them. They gave me good support and I believe they make a good product. I just dont believe their product is designed to work well with my setup.
So I gave up. I tried so many different ways, but every time I overcame one issue, something else wasn’t working as designed. And I mean the problems changed… one time the RFID wouldn’t program but the starter did kick in. When I fixed the RFID, then the starter would only engage when releasing the button. It just went on and on and I finally gave up. In 15 minutes, I removed the pushbutton start / RFID and had the Factory 5 keyed ignition installed and everything working.
With the keyed ignition, the Boss 427 finally gets to turn over! (Sorry about the noise in the video… had the big shop fan running)
And finally, my custom made gauges from Speedhut arrived. I designed everything about these… the font, the tick styles, the needles, the colors. The speedo is GPS driven. Although its a totally modern setup, yes the speedo operates backwards just like the original AC Ace and the Shelby Cobra.
History on the backwards speedo goes back to the AC Ace, the car that the Cobra was created from. Rumour is that when originally designing and building the car, the mechanical cable that ran from the transmission to the speedo was turning “anti-clockwise”. Normally, this would be fixed by a small gearbox on the back of the speedo. But AC decided to not add additional parts and simply operate the speedo backwards. When AC lost their engine contract and Carroll Shelby approached them with the idea of placing a Ford small block V8 in their car, he opted to leave it as is because he thought it was cool.
While I’m not building an exact replica by any means, I am proud to pay respect to the original in several ways. This is one.
And just as a side note, the 427 Cobra soon became the fastest production car in the world, capable of 0-100 and back to zero in less than 10 seconds. Backwards speedo or not. 🙂
Thanks for following…